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UPDATE: The California Film Commission sent out this alert today:
Early this morning, the California legislature passed a tax credit for film and television productions that film at least 75% of their shooting days in California, as part of the state budget bill. The program is funded for five years at $100 million per year beginning in fiscal year July 2009/10 through the 2013/14 fiscal year. (However, credits may not be utilized until tax years beginning in January 2011.)
The Production Incentive Program is geared towards feature films with budgets between $1 million and $75 million, TV series that relocate to California, and TV series produced for basic cable.
Eligible productions may receive tax credits equal to 20% of qualifying expenditures or 25% for independent films (with budgets under $10 million) and TV series that relocate to California. Only below-the-line expenditures qualify.
Enormous thanks goes out to a broad coalition of entertainment industry groups who worked tirelessly on this effort for many years. Those groups include: DGA, IATSE, AFTRA, SAG, Teamsters, MPAA, IFTA, Hollywood Post Alliance, PGA and countless film workers, producers, support businesses, the CFC board, and others too numerous to mention.
Over the next few months, CFC Director Amy Lemisch will be working on drafting program regulations and application procedures.
It took lots of arm-twisting until the early morning hours, but there's finally an agreement on the new California budget that still includes film tax credits aimed at slowing runaway production from the headquarters of the movie business. That $100 million in tax incentives annually kicks in only at 2011 for 5 years and is aimed at luring moviemakers to stay in California despite the Legislature's need to bridge a $42 billion state budget gap.
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First, I am stunned that that wasn’t stripped out of this terrible bill. Secondly, a hundred million is a pathetic amount compared to the incentives other states are drawing the studios away with, which will probably run out by next year anyway.
If I sound pessimistic, know this. Ultimately it is a bittersweet and barn door closing action on the part of a lame state government who literally just shoved a stick up the ass of every legal Californian and snapped it off.
Finally. As other incentive and rebate programs begin to dry up, this may well help the pendulum swing back our way.
My husband is a BTLer and is finding that easily 30% (probably more) of the new pilots are going out of state, lots to NYC.
Is that enough? Sounds like it will run out right away.
The death knell on NY’s tax incentives has been sounding for awhile (translated: They’re broke). I’m with Hammonds in hoping this’ll turn things around a little bit.
Again, the arrogance of the politcos have screwed the value of the business. $100 mil? Chump change. Iron Man can burn that up all by itself.
Actually, NYC is out of tax credit money, so ZERO pilots have penciled in NY.
I am thrilled they didn’t strip it out of the bill considering we are broke and it has taken years to get them to understand how much money the state is losing to runaway production.
Is 100 million enough? Maybe not, but it’s a start and giving away too much just causes the program to implode, witness NY’s right now. So maybe lawmakers will see the benefit and expand the cuts but I have to say this is really good news for those depending on entertainment jobs staying in Ca. I am very pleasantly surprised and happy.
Thank goodness! Finally a bit of good news…
CinefileX you arent a real bright boy are ya? 100 million in tax credits? iron man didnt have a 1 billion dollar budget…idiot
I’m all for keeping production in Cali, but doesn’t anyone else think it’s kind of sick for a few dozen states to basically race to give their money away to producers, and to get really nothing back in exchange, aside from bragging rights that Disaster Movie or Kill Theory was shot at such-and-such state park.
Does New Mexico or Louisiana really get $5-15 million of value out of having a B picture shoot in their back yard? Could they ever possibly draw enough work to their state on a regular basis that they would actually be able to develop an actual “industry” in the state? I’ve shot in GA, doing production sound, and there’s like one guy on the entire Atlantic Seaboard south of D.C. that people call to do production sound for films; everyone else flies their own guy in or gets burned with a rookie. Same thing for G&E, camera: there’s enough people for one or two good crews. The states are basically getting the out-of-staters to buy a bunch of hotel rooms and craft service, like they’re paying you to stage a film convention or camping trip, and I don’t really see any real “economic development.’ The scales involved are just too tiny; a film crew is not a WalMart. I dunno, maybe other people’s experience is different… I’d welcome correction.
I kinda feel like the whole tax credit thing is sorta a scam, and it only benefits impresarios because it allows them to bid down costs, and I’m sorry California has to play along.
Not that there are any geniuses in the California state government who could have figured out (by example)that they should be offering tax credits to get businesses to stay here, but I’ve always suspected that that it’s the studios who haven’t wanted the productions to stay here, since they have pretty strong political clout (ie. cash) within the state.
Jamie, while it is fundamentally ridiculous for the state to be giving money to productions to have them in town, studies have shown, at least in new york, that it is profitable to throw all that money away.
jamie — I spent three months recently on location in NM with my husband. I got my hair cut and colored twice ($250 per), we ate out every other day, got my dry cleaning done, and even though our housing was paid for, I went to Wal-Mart constantly for cheap comforts of home. All our day-to-day monies was spent in NM and we’re thinking of buy a 2nd home there so my husband could work both in LA and NM. So yeah, these incentive programs makes a hell of a lot of sense and work for the community. Due to film money, there’s areas in Albquerque, Nob Hill, that resemble Atwater/Silverlake — hip, very good restaurants and trendy. They call it Nob Hollywood for a reason.
$100 million is going to disappear immediately. i mean, this will cover maybe a half-dozen studio pictures and a series or two. meanwhile, the state is keeping a state park closed this year. go cali!